i1 Display concerns.
i1 Display concerns.
- Subject: i1 Display concerns.
- From: "Michael Lithgow from Colourhead" <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2003 13:57:04 +1000
- Organization: Colourhead Digital Colour Management Services
Several weeks ago when the i1 Display colorimeter became available I was
sent one from the local importer. On a new Mitsubishi with Trinitron
tube using i1Match 2 it calibrated with a slight cyan cast in the
highlights and midtones, which crossed to red in the shadows and blacks.
The pointers jumped around quite a bit as well despite my attempt to
improve this by changing the monitor refresh rate. I tried it again but
this time using the Eye One spectro. There was considerable improvement
with a neutral greyscale and the pointers were steady. Interestingly the
requested adjustment for the RGB guns was quite different from the
colorimeter.
Whenever testing monitor calibration equipment I always like to try
putting it through it's paces on a less than ideal screen. I use one of
the last G3 iMacs as it is still a good unit but has no user RGB gun
adjustment. The colorimeter failed miserably, again giving me cyan
highlights and red shadows and blacks with a white that I can only
describe as bizarre, with a somewhat florescent look. Worst of all was
that it returned a different result every time it was calibrated. I
thought obviously I have a faulty unit and requested another from the
importer.
When I received the new replacement unit I was amazed to find exactly
the same thing, in so much as a different result each time can be called
the same, but I think you know what I mean. I had both units on hand so
it was not a case of accidentally being sent back the same unit as I had
previously tried.
It appears to me and I stress that this is pure theory, that Gretag have
attempted to provide a unit which is equally capable of calibrating both
LCDs and CRTs without the need to add on any accessories such as a
density filter. In doing so and to prevent sensor overflow they have
restricted the amount of light reaching the sensor with the use of fine
tubes. This however results in not enough light getting to the sensor in
the case of CRTs and explains the strong cast especially in the shadows
and the instability of the pointers. Further along this point, I tried
calibrating an LCD and the result seemed very good and with rock solid
pointers.
The only way I could get an acceptable result on the iMac was to choose
Native Whitepoint using the spectro and the improvement was quite
dramatic, however this results in a Whitepoint colour temp. of around
9300k. Of further interest was that while considerably better results
were obtained using the Eye One spectro even this combo resulted in
inconsistency on the iMac. I should point out that ProfileMaker Pro does
a very acceptable job of the same iMac using the spectro and can nail it
the same every time, as does numerous other calibration solutions. It
therefore seems that the i1Display colorimeter is not much good with
CRTs and that i1Match itself has problems as even with the spectro it
was below par when asked to calibrate at other than native whitepoint.
I have not read anything about this on the list and would be very
interested to hear of other users findings. I have no axe to grind with
Gretag and happily use their other products, I am simply telling it like
I find it. By the way I have updated to i1Match 2.0.2 but have not seen
any improvement in the areas I have mentioned.
Michael Lithgow
Colourhead Digital Colour Management Services
Glen Waverley
Vic. 3150
Australia
Ph/Fax (03) 9511 5031
Mobile 0425 719413
email@hidden
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